Once, Always
by What the Fluff Project
Summary: Part One of the "Love Across Time" sequence. There's something odd about Gwen - somehow, Jack feels as though he's seen her before. Harcooper!


**Title: Once, Always (Love Across Time part 1)  
>Author: Ofelia (unshakespearean)<br>Fandom: Torchwood  
>Characters: [Gwen, Jack]<br>Rating: K  
>Warnings: None!<strong>

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><p><em>Jack's POV<em>

It is a truth universally acknowledged that Gwen Cooper is the most beautiful and incredible woman ever to grace the planet, and any other that she might someday grace.

But there's something else about her, something I can't quite place. Somehow, I feel like I've seen her before, loved her before, as though she existed long before that rainy night.

_What is it? _I've been asking myself for the past week, the best seven days I've ever had. It was a week ago tonight that Gwen whispered her confession in my ear, that I whispered it back. I can still feel her breath on my cheek when I close my eyes.

She's curled up next to me, head resting on my arm, a slight smile on her face that's just visible in the darkness. I can't help but press a quick kiss into her hair, and when I do, she lets out this little tiny hint of a sigh and her smile grows.

I reach back into my memories and try to figure out where I saw her. From growing up on the Boeshane Peninsula, to working with the Agency… _Could she be someone from the two years I lost? _I wonder. But I can _remember _her, really and truly remember her - the question is, where from?

Eventually I reach the point on memory lane when I met the Doctor and Rose. I can hear the Glenn Miller in my head and feel Rose's head on my shoulder. I thought I had liked her then, but it was nothing, _nothing_, to the way I feel about Gwen.

I skip over to the end of my time with them, when the Doctor abandoned me at the Game Station. I was trying to figure out where to go to find them again, and then I had the idea of going to Cardiff because the Doctor and Rose told me about the rift. So I teleported, hoping to land in the 21st century but ended up in 1869 and started working at Torchwood just after. I was put on a mission right away, working undercover with another guy. He was pretending to be a butcher; I was pretending to be his son. We were investigating a funeral home located right on top of the rift, noticing some strange activity, including dead people coming back to life and a psychic girl named Gwyneth. I remember having fallen in love with her…

Hold on a minute…

_The rift was healed back in 1869 thanks to a girl named Gwyneth, because these creatures called the Gelth, they were using the rift as a gateway but she saved the world and closed it._

Gwyneth.

The girl who had closed the rift.

The girl I'd fallen in love with.

"Gotcha," I whisper, half to Gwen and half to myself. "It would be you, wouldn't it? Who else would close the rift and save the world? You're probably related to her."

One way to know for sure.

I get out of bed as carefully as I can, trying not to wake her, but of course I fail. "What the hell are you doing?" she asks.

"Just gotta check something," I whisper, pulling the blankets back over her. I press a quick kiss to her forehead and run for the computers.

Sure enough, they're related. I try to download a PDF, but the computer gives me an error message:

_The file requested has already been downloaded by: Ianto Jones, 2/13/08. Would you like to open this copy?_

Of course Ianto looked into this two months ago. I click "yes" and the file opens. It looks exactly the same, except for a line drawn between Gwen and Gwyneth. There's a little comment next to it: a link, with a message from Ianto: _Thought you might find this interesting. They might be more than just related._

I click the link to see a PDF of an article on something called "spatial genetic multiplicity." It's long and technical, but I notice that Ianto highlighted a bit of text.

**Spatial genetic multiplicity is not familial as we understand it. There's no blood tie. Spatial genetic multiplicity means an echo and repetition of physical traits across a time rift. Personality traits can also be copied, although this only occurs when the family in question has spent at least 20 years near the same rift. If the family has spent 50 years or more, it is possible for an exact copy of a person to exist. For 50 years, the probability is around 15%, rising proportionally as the amount of time increases.**

The note next to it says: _Mathematically speaking, since 150 (the approximate amount of time in between Gwyneth's birth and Gwen's) is 3x50, the probability of their being exact copies is 3x greater than 15%, or 45%. And I've traced it back further: the family dates back at least 50-75 years before Gwyneth's birth, always living right on the rift. If pre-Gwyneth time counts, that makes at least 200 years - a 60% probability. Cool, no?_

"Very cool," I say softly. I log out of the computer and walk back to my room.

"What were you doing?" Gwen asks sleepily as I crawl back in bed.

"Oh, nothing, just finding out that I've probably been in love with you since 1869," I say quickly. "Go back to sleep, alright?"

"I have no idea what you're talking about," she mutters, "so I suppose I'll just go back to sleep." And with that, she rests her head on my chest and falls asleep again. I wrap my arms around her and play with her hair a bit before falling asleep myself.

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><p><strong>Hey folks! Told you the next Harcooper piece would be longer! We never let you down, do we? :)<strong>

**This one was inspired by a post Ofelia saw on Tumblr that said: **

I was just re-watching Doctor Who with my mom, and I have this new headcanon that the butcher boy Gwyneth was in love with in "The Unquiet Dead" was actually Jack under cover. He did end up on the wrong century, after all. And he did fall in love with her, but we all know what happened at the end… So more than 100 years later, he finally meet her again.

**Headcanon. Accepted.**

**A-ny-way, you'd have noticed that this one was called part one of the Love Across Time sequence. There is going to be a part two, which is going to be Hetalia and entitled "All Along." (Ten points to anyone who can guess what the piece is going to be about!) If anyone else has ideas for a "love across time" fic, you know who to email!**

**Along that line, remember to email us if you have an idea or want to write, and give us fluffy love all over the interwebs!**

**Have a flufftastic day!**

**The WTF Team**


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